Daily Speed Read: News You Should Know April 30, 2014

By Lisa Keen

S.C. BUDGET CUTS GET SECOND LOOK: A South Carolina senate subcommittee recommended a budget that leaves out the House-passed cuts to public colleges using gay books. The chair of the subcommittee, Senator John Courson, told Associated Press he thinks books "should be up to the presidents of the institution and the board of trustees which the General Assembly elects." The decision by Courson, a Republican, bucks the Republican-led House plan to cut $70,000 from the budgets of two state universities because they used gay positive books in their curricula. According to an Associated Press report Sunday, the Senate Finance Committee could begin debating the budget this week.

AN ENDORSEMENT RUSH: Openly lesbian Massachusetts attorney general candidate Maura Healey racked up a string of endorsements recently from women's PACS: EMILY's List, Women's Campaign Fund, Feminist Majority, and Barbara Lee. The Women's Campaign Fund named Healey one of their 40 "Game Changers," for whom they promise to raise $40,000. Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal called Healey a "trailblazer for women's rights, civil rights, and human rights." Emily's List has endorsed Healey, as well as her former boss Martha Coakley for governor. Healey needs the support: As of April 17, Healey had $363,644 in her campaign coffers compared to her Democratic primary opponent's $602,400.

CARL DEMAIO ON LGBT INTOLERANCE: RealClearPolitics.com quoted openly gay Republican U.S. House candidate Carl DeMaio about how he's been received by opposite ends of the political spectrum: "I've found more tolerance, acceptance and inclusion from social conservative groups who have to reconcile that I'm a Republican who happens to be gay...versus the intolerance the LGBT leaders see me as a gay man who happens to be a Republican."

FRANK'S BURNING MEMORIES: A just previewed documentary about the life of former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank includes a story about Frank receiving a letter from one of his former roommates at Harvard in which the roommate told Frank he was gay and had a crush on Frank. According to the Boston Globe, Frank was not openly gay at the time and feared that being so would hurt his political career. He burned the letter and gave the roommate no indication he was gay, too.

GRIFFIN ECHOES 'ONE CHAPTER': New York Times reporter Jo Becker has defended criticism of her book about "inside the fight for marriage equality" (Forcing the Spring) by saying it's about "one chapter" of that decades-long battle. Her chapter is the Proposition 8 litigation organized by Chad Griffin and his American Foundation for Equal Rights, which included lead attorney Ted Olson. Griffin was on MSNBC's Morning Joe talk show Tuesday morning and was immediately tackled with a question about all the criticism Becker's received for focusing her book squarely on Griffin as a sort of "Rosa Parks" for marriage equality. Griffin has issued statements vigorously acknowledging that he is not the lone hero of the marriage equality movement. He did so again on Morning Joe. Interestingly, his questioner was an old comrade from AFER -Nicole Wallace. Wallace said she served as a spokesperson for Griffin when he was in charge at AFER. "What was so interesting to me," said Gill, talking to Griffin, "was to see how raw nerves were within the movement -that there were activists who were so offended by the attention paid to what I think a lot of people on the outside thought was a very important chapter."

As an openly gay man, Fred Hoffman said, "I really didn't know if there would be an issue." And while he wasn't waving rainbow flags when he was recruited by Chrysler in 1988, he was told being gay wasn't a problem.